The Solid State and Materials Research Group has come up with a lithium ion capacitor using electrodes produced from wood particles that are discarded as waste in sawmills.
The Solid State and Materials Research Group has come up with a lithium ion capacitor using electrodes produced from wood particles that are discarded as waste in sawmills. This biomass is very easily available across the Basque Country, and sustainable, inexpensive processes have been used to produce electrodes. The results reveal that the materials derived from biomass have excellent properties for obtaining eco friendly, cost-effective systems designed to store high-power energy.
In the quest for sustainable energy solutions capable of meeting the energy needs of modern society, energy storage systems play a hugely important role; indeed, “in the field of renewable energies we cannot control the wind, heat, light, etc. that nature offers us. And the energy demand sometimes does not coincide with the energy supply; so resources need to be developed to store that energy produced by renewable systems”, explained Eider Goikolea, a researcher in the Solid State and Materials Research Group.
Materials for the next generation of electrochemical energy storage technologies are being developed by the members of the research group Eider Goikolea and Idoia Ruiz de Larramendi (UPV/EHU lecturers). “We develop new materials that can be used to store energy. In this case, to create electrodes we prepared carbon from the wood particles of the insignis pines that are all around us and are used in carpentry workshops. At the end of the day, this sawdust is not used for anything and has a very high carbon content,” said Idoia Ruiz de Larramendi.
Read more at University of the Basque Country
Image: From left to right: Idoia Ruiz de Larramendi and Eider Goikolea at the laboratory of the UPV/EHU | Photo: Mitxi. UPV/EHU
